For all of the conspiracy talk about how the Clintons secretly want Obama to lose, any one of these four is actually more dangerous to McCain behind the scenes, for the simple reason that every single action of the Clintons is being watched, with the media assuming the worst of them. On the other hand, the spurned VP picks will be much more able to operate under the cover of night.

2. Speaking of the Clintons, on what planet is Hillary Clinton going to think it's ok for Palin to steal her "18 million cracks" and essentially draft on he groundbreaking run? I would wager that ore than anything that happened last week, the cynical selection of Palin will do more to embolden the Clintons--and their followers---to Obama's side.

But among the critical undecideds, the Palin pick made only 6 percent more likely to vote for McCain; and it made 31 percent less likely to vote for him. 49 percent said it would have no impact, and 15 percent remained unsure. More to the point: among undecideds, 59 percent said Palin was unready to be president. Only 6 percent said she was. If the first criterion for any job is whether you're ready for it, this is a pretty major indictment of the first act of McCain's presidential leadership.

Let's assume that Sarah Palin is exactly as smart and disciplined as Barack Obama. But instead of the year and a half of nonstop campaigning he has behind him, and Joe Biden's even longer toughening-up process, she comes into the most intense period of the highest stakes campaign with absolutely zero warmup or preparation. If she has ever addressed an international issue, there's no evidence of it in internet-land.

The smartest person in the world could not prepare quickly enough to know the pitfalls, and to sound confident while doing so, on all the issues she will be forced to address. This is long before she gets to a debate with Biden; it's what the press is going to start out looking for.